Defeated Nader Blasts Gore and Democrats

Defeated Nader Blasts Gore and Democrats

CNSNews.com
Thursday, Nov. 9, 2000

WASHINGTON – He garnered only 3 percent of the national vote – below the 5 percent he was aiming for – but on this day after the election, presidential candidate Ralph Nader vowed that his Green Party is here to stay. He called his candidacy the beginning of the end of America's two-party system.

At a press conference, Nader also accused the Gore campaign of trying to derail his candidacy. He blamed the Democratic Party for helping to elect "very bad" Republicans.

According to Nader: "The Gore campaigners pulled out every stop in an attempt to peel off our voters. They were apparently successful in some states with reducing our total. But these voters will be back with us in future elections, especially if Al Gore wins the presidency. He will have ample time to demonstrate that ... relying on Al Gore is a very risky proposition."

"In the end," Nader continued, "the Democratic Party must face the fact that it has become very good at electing very bad Republicans. Apparently, it can't even win in Tennessee and Arkansas. Apparently, it lost the House once again in the fourth straight congressional election to the extreme wing of the Republican Party.

"Perhaps that's why more and more Americans realize that they cannot rely on the Democratic Party to defend this country against the extreme arch-corporatist, reactionary wing of the Republican Party that now controls the House and possibly even the Senate."

Nader believes that Gore should have "landslided" Republican George W. Bush because of Bush's "terrible record in Texas."

"Gore had all the advantages of an incumbent administration, but he never generated enthusiasm," Nader said. These voters chose Gore not out of conviction, but because they judged him the "least worst" of the candidates, he said.

"Although he said he was his own man in Los Angeles at the Democratic convention," Nader said, "to my knowledge he didn't change one major position that he held under the Clinton-Gore years."

On charges that his campaign took votes away from Gore, Nader said, "This was probably the campaign's most impudent assertion."

"It's as if new political stars shouldn't want to get more votes from all other political candidates in the great American tradition of competition. It's as if new political stars should cede the votes to one or the other of the two major candidates who believe they are entitled to votes and not entitled to earn their votes."

The Democratic Party, according to Nader, must face the fact that it has abandoned its "progressive roots."

"The party has been seized by its conservative, reactionary, pro-corporate wing and the leadership of that group produced a candidate and a platform that did not excite the voters. Joe Lieberman is the quintessential corporate Democrat. He is the real Al Gore," Nader said.

"The Democrats must now either find their progressive roots or watch the party gradually wither away or basically become a Republican Party, bidding for the same money and increasingly the same voters," Nader said.

Nader accused the Democratic party of turning its back on organized labor. "The two major parties offer us a choice between a do-little party and a do-nothing party. They have both abdicated their responsibility to lead," Nader said.

Nader did not say whether he would run for public office again.

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Presidential Race 2000
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